The way that we do this is we allot a certain amount of funds for the principal's discretionary fund. On all our field trip forms we have a check box for parent's that says something like: if you are having trouble paying for this trip... The principal uses the money raised and gifted by the PTG to pay for these families. This way you don't have to worry about confidentiality or perceived favoritism either. Hope that helps.
Jan

Your PTO does NOT want to get into the business of having to assess/verify needs of this nature in order to select students to which to grant monetary assistance. And, from a confidentiality perspective, the needy students don't need to have a group of their peer's parents in their personal business.

Instead, set aside a % of the PTO's annual budget to fund "scholarships" to cover expenses like school supplies and field trip fees for in-need students. The principal and/or guidance counselor can screen needs, choose the recipients, and disburse the funds.

Hey everyone..need some input, we are in the process of forming a PTO and one of our members is wanting to be able to fundraise and then donate money to individual students if they need help with going to events, etc. Is this ok? I know that with PTA you can't donate to an individual at all....if this is the case aren't we going to be bombarded with requests for help? Thanks for any advice!